Inclusive instructions

When writing instructions, you may be tempted to refer to things based on their on-screen position or on aspects of their visual appearance such as colour, shape or size.

Instructions that rely on being able to see what is referenced are unhelpful to people with low or no vision, or colour blindness.

Bad examples would include:

• “Available seats are indicated with a green circle.”
• “Select from the options in the right-hand sidebar.”

Directional instructions also assume that everyone is looking at a screen with exactly the same size and orientation, which isn’t guaranteed.

With responsive web design, page presentation can change drastically depending on the available screen size, and whether a person has zoomed their web page using their browser. That sidebar might not be where you think it is.